FALLACIES OF CHRISTMAS SYMBOLISMS

"DECEMBER 25TH...THE ACTUAL BIRTH OF JESUS...?"

It is claimed that the day celebrated as Christmas (December 25) is the actual birthday of Jesus. The status here is very undetermined! The biblical narrative of Jesus' birth gives no date for the event, though it more likely occurred in the Spring than Winter. Saint Luke tells us that shepherds were "abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night" - shepherds guarded their flocks day and night only at lambing time, in the spring; in winter the animals were kept in corrals unwatched.

It is important to note that for two centuries after Christ's birth, no one knew, and few people cared, exactly when he was born. Birthdays were unimportant; death days counted. Besides Christ was divine and his natural birth was deliberately played down. In fact, the church even announced at one point that it was sinful to contemplate observing Christ's birthday "as though He were a king Pharaoh."

The idea of celebrating the Nativity on December 25 was first suggested early in the fourth century CE, a clever move on the part of the church fathers who wished to eclipse the December festivities of the rival pagan religion, Mithraism, which threatened the existence of Christianity.

On December 25 (the date of the winter solstice) pagan Romans, still in the majority, celebrated Natalis Solis Invincti, "Birthday of the Invincible Sun God," Mithra's. The Mithra's cult originated in Persia and rooted itself in the Roman world in the first century BBE, but by early 300s CE the rising religion of Christianity was posing a formidable challenge to the sun worshipers, especially after the Edict of Milan issued by the Roman emperor Constantine I in 313 CE allowed Christians to practice their faith in the Roman Empire.

In those tenuous early days of Christianity, however, Church fathers debated strategies for supplanting the Mithras cult with their own religion. Since it was well known that Roman Patricians and plebeians alike enjoyed festivals of protracted nature, Christians recognized that they needed an alternative to the December celebration in which all participants - Mithraist, Christians and those in between - could take part with pride. Accordingly, the church officially recognized Christ birth, and to offer head-on competition to the sun worshipers' popular feast, the church located the Nativity on December 25. The mode of observance would be characteristically prayerful: a Mass. In fact, Christ's Mass. As on theologian wrote in 320 CE:

We hold this day holy, not like the pagans because of the birth of the sun but of him who made it.

Although centuries later, social scientist would write of the psychological power of the group celebrations - the unification of ranks, the solidification of ranks, the solidification of collective identity, the reinforcement of common objectives - the principle had long been intuitively obvious. Christianity took permanent hold in the Western world in 337 CE when Constantine I was baptized in his deathbed, uniting for the first time the Crown and the Church.

"IMMACULATE CONCEPTION"

The term "immaculate conception" is often used generally to denote the conception of a child by a woman who has not engaged in sexual intercourse, and specially to the conception of Jesus by the Virgin Mary, Both usages are incorrect.

"Immaculate Conception" refers to neither the conception of Jesus nor the virgin birth. It is a specific doctrine of Roman Catholicism decreeing that the Virgin Mary was preserved free from original sin by Devine grace from the moment of her conception. Although dogma had been argued since the twelfth century, it was not made official until 1854 by Pope Pius IX. Since then December 8 has been observed as a Roman Catholic feast commemoration of the Immaculate Conception.

"THE THREE WISE MEN"

The Christmas Holiday is almost over in our house. The tree, outside lights and house decoration will be stored in the loft in the garage and will be gone by Sunday. I grew up with the Filipino tradition that Christmas ends after the celebration of the "Three Kings" (January 6th). As claimed: The Bible says that the three wise men travelled from afar on camels to visit the infant Jesus as he laid in the manger. I recently found out that this is a false claim. As originally claimed; as Santa Claus and his reindeer are secular celebration of Christmas, so the three wise men and the creche are to the religious celebration. Even most of the non-religious (or non-Christian) among us recognize the symbolism of the nativity scene: it depicts the biblical account of the three wise men from the east who rode atop camels and followed a star to Bethlehem, bearing gifts for the newborn Christ child who lays in the manger.

The truth is, the Bible contains virtually none of those details. They have all been added over the years from sources outside the Bible.

Mathew 2:1 tells us:

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem...

That's it. Mathew doesn't say how many wise men came from the east, doesn't mention their names, and doesn't provide any details about how they made their journey. It has generally assumed that the wise men (or magi) were three because Mathew 2:1 makes three gifts: "...they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense and myrrh," The number of wise men is not specified in the Bible, however, and some Eastern religions have claimed up to twelve of them made the journey to Bethlehem. The names Gaspar, Melchior and Balthazar, do not come from the Bible and does not appear in Christian literature until over five hundred years after the birth of Jesus. Nothing in the Bible says the wise men rode camels (or any other animals); they have made their journey from the east on foot for all we know. And despite the familiar lyrics of the Christmas carol "We Three Kings," no biblical source depicts the three wise men as kings. (They were most likely learned men, perhaps astrologers.)

The wise men came "into the house," not the stable, and they saw a "young child." not a newborn. This passage indicates that the wise men didn't arrive until quite some times after the birth of Jesus. (According to Luke 2, it was shepherds not wise men, who visited the infant Jesus in the manger.)

To sum it up: we know from the Bible that wise men came from the east, that they followed the star to Bethlehem to find the Christ child, and that they brought him gold and frankincense and myrrh. We must look to sources external to the Bible to find the origins of any of the familiar details however.